Taliban claims credit for Karzai assassination

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Ahmad Wali Karzai, the half-brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the most powerful leader in Kandahar, was assassinated Tuesday by a security guard — a killing for which the Taliban quickly took credit.

The attack sparked increased military activity in the area, as several International Security Assistance Force convoys quickly left their base at Kandahar Airfield for Kandahar City.

“I can confirm that Ahmad Wali Karzai was killed in his home,” Zalmay Ayoubi, a spokesman for the Kandahar governor, told Postmedia News on Tuesday.

He said Mr. Karzai was shot around 11 a.m. during a meeting with other tribal leaders.

Officials named security guard Sardar Mohammad, whom Mr. Ayoubi described as a “trusted friend of Mr. Karzai since 2004,” as the killer.

“Mr. Mohammad asked to speak privately to Mr. Karzai and said he had some documents to show him,” Mr. Ayoubi said. “They went into a private room and he shot him.”

He said Mr. Mohammad shot Mr. Karzai twice in the head and once in the chest with his pistol.

The assassin was then shot dead by Mr. Karzai’s bodyguards, officials said.

Mr. Karzai’s death comes as NATO troops start withdrawing from the country and as Western nations search for a political solution after a decade of war.

Canada’s combat mission in the country officially ended last week.

Mr. Karzai was the head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, which is the provincial legislature or shura.

Mr. Karzai was considered by some local leaders to be a corrupting influence in the region, and he had been accused of being involved in drug-trafficking and bribery. He had denied the allegations.

The International Security Assistance Force considered him a difficult leader who had hamstrung attempts to bring peace to the region by favouring his own Popalzai tribe in business dealings, creating considerable resentment among local tribal leaders.

There have been nine attempts to assassinate him including a rocket attack on his motorcade in 2009. Also that year four Taliban suicide bombers attached the provincial council meeting killing 13 people. Mr. Karzai claimed they were targeting him.

Kandahar Gov. Tooryalai Wesa said several people have already been arrested in connection with the killing.

He called the assassination “a catastrophe for everyone.”

He told a news conference at his Kandahar City palace that Mr. Karzai “helped bring peace and stability to the region.”

“The man who carried out this cowardly attack was a good friend of Ahmad Wali Karzai.”

The security guard-turned assassin had been in charge of several checkpoints in the east of Kandahar City, located close to Mr. Karzai’s home.

William Crosbie, Canada’s ambassador to Afghanistan, issued a curt, two-line statement condemning the assassination. He said, “Canada will continue to work with Afghans, the majority of whom reject senseless violence, to build better governed, more stable and secure country free of conflict.”

Given his enormous influence, Mr. Karzai’s assassination raises the question of how this will change the political dynamics of the region. It also raises questions of how this will impact the position of Hamid Karzai whose presidency has been weakened by charges of electoral corruption as well as his alliance with tribal leaders.

After the terrorist attack by al-Qaida on Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Karzai worked for the CIA, which paid tribal warlords to join an alliance to defeat the Taliban armies and to form a new Afghan government.

The Mr. Karzai family is Pashtun from Kandahar where it has traditionally been among the most influential families in Afghanistan and an fervent enemy of the Taliban, most of whom are also Pashtuns.

Ahmad Karzai was first elected to the provincial legislature in 2005 and has since been a main target of the Taliban.

Mr. Karzai was always surrounded by heavy security. He lived with his family in a fortified villa surrounded by concrete barriers, barbed wire and security guards in the city.

Kandahar itself has become a city flooded with checkpoints manned by Afghan police, Afghan soldiers and private security. The city is regularly patrolled by allied armoured vehicles.

Kandahar provincial police chief Gen. Abdul Raziq called the assassination an “heinous act by a trusted friend” and asked the people of Kandahar to remain calm “in the face of this tragedy.”

He said the “enemies of peace and Afghanistan” were “targeting tribal elders and extraordinary people” who are “useful to the country.”

Mr. Karzai’s funeral is scheduled for Wednesday and is expected to attract hundreds of followers as well as an enormous security detail of Afghan police and army officials as well as ISAF soldiers.

There were reports that President Karzai had already flown into Kandahar for the funeral.

Capt. Marie-Noelle Blanchet, a Canadian soldier stationed at the ISAF’s southern region headquarters, said both ISAF and the Afghan National Army were “beefing up the security” in the wake of Mr. Karzai’s death.